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This week (9/6 & 9/8) on ART ON THE AIR features a creative couple with polymer clay artist Layl McDill, who creates sculptures with whimsical themes, and handmade tile artist Josh Blanc, who creates both classical and artistic tiles at their studio showroom Clay Squared in Minneapolis. Our Spotlight is on Creative Solutions’ architectural tour of Michigan City on September 21st with architect/scholar Matt Kubik.
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This week (9/6 & 9/8) on ART ON THE AIR features a creative couple with polymer clay artist Layl McDill, who creates sculptures with whimsical themes, and handmade tile artist Josh Blanc, who creates both classical and artistic tiles at their studio showroom Clay Squared in Minneapolis. Our Spotlight is on Creative Solutions’ architectural tour of Michigan City on September 21st with architect/scholar Matt Kubik.
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Listen to AOTA-240906 - Layl McDill. Josh Blanc, Spotlight Michigan CIty tour by Art On The Air MP3 song. AOTA-240906 - Layl McDill. Josh Blanc, Spotlight Michigan CIty tour song from Art On The Air is available on Audio.com. The duration of song is 58:30. This high-quality MP3 track has 160 kbps bitrate and was uploaded on 7 Aug 2024. Stream and download AOTA-240906 - Layl McDill. Josh Blanc, Spotlight Michigan CIty tour by Art On The Air for free on Audio.com – your ultimate destination for MP3 music.
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The episode of Art on the Air features a couple of artists, Lael McDill and Josh Blount, who create sculptures and handmade tiles respectively. They have a studio showroom in Clay Squared in Minneapolis. There's also a spotlight on the Creative Solutions Architectural Tour of Michigan City, which will take place on September 21st. The tour will explore historic buildings and neighborhoods in Michigan City, with a focus on the Uptown Arts District. The tour will be led by Matt Kubik, an artist and professor emeritus from Purdue University. The tour will highlight the relationship between architecture and history, as well as the aesthetic nature of the buildings. The tour will end with refreshments at Barker Hall at Trinity Episcopal Church. The episode also mentions upcoming events at the Memorial Opera House and features an interview with polymer clay artist Lael McDill. This week on Art on the Air features a creative couple with polymer clay artist Lael McDill who creates sculptures with whimsical themes and handmade tile artist Josh Blount who creates both classical and artistic tiles at their studio showroom in Clay Squared in Minneapolis. Our spotlight is on Creative Solutions Architectural Tour of Michigan City on September 21st with a weekly program covering the arts and arts events throughout Northwest Indiana and beyond. I'm Larry Breckner of New Perspectives Photography right alongside here with Esther Golden of the Nest in Michigan City. Aloha everyone. We're your hosts for Art on the Air. Art on the Air is supported by an Indiana Arts Commission Arts Project Grant, South Shore Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Art on the Air is heard every Sunday at 7 p.m. on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM, also streaming live at lakeshorepublicmedia.org and is available on Lakeshore Public Media's website as a podcast. Also heard on Friday at 11 a.m. and Monday at 5 p.m. on WVLP, 103.1 FM, streaming live at wvlp.org. Our spotlight interviews are also heard Wednesdays on Lakeshore Public Media. Information about Art on the Air is available at our website, breck.com slash AOTA. That includes a complete show archive, spotlight interviews, plus our show is available on multiple podcast platforms, including NPR One. Please like us on Facebook, Art on the Air, WVLP, for information about upcoming shows and interviews. We'd like to welcome to Art on the Air Spotlight, Matt Kubik, who is an artist, designer, professor emeritus from Purdue University. This is his first time coming on Art on the Air Spotlight, and he's going to be taking a tour of Michigan City's downtown, kind of an architectural tour, but we first want to know a little bit about your background, Matt, for our audience, so tell us a little bit about Matt Kubik. Well, thanks, Larry. I'm a Michigan City native, but I was trained as an architect, and then I worked as an architect in Chicago for several large architecture firms, and then finally ended up in academia. I guess if you had to have a title, you know what titles are worth, but if you had to have a title, I'm a Purdue University professor emeritus. I taught on the Fort Wayne campus for 30 years in their architecture interior design programs. But related to Michigan City, I refer to myself as a Michigan City boy, and kind of an amateur historian, and combining my interest in Michigan City history with, of course, my love of architecture, I'm really pleased to have been offered this opportunity to provide a tour of some of Michigan City's historic buildings and neighborhoods, specifically the Uptown Arts District, from let's say the library down to 11th Street, and pointing out some of our architectural features, and so it's going to be a great event. We're going to do that on September 21st. This is for the Center for Creative Solutions, and if anyone wants to join me, they can go to the centerforcreativesolutions.com and get information, or they can call 219-326-7259. 219-326-7259. We're going to kick off at 1 p.m. in the afternoon, and I'm hoping that people might consider joining me for a little bit of architecture in Michigan City. Can you briefly highlight, because the title is, like, Touring Creativity Through Architecture, so can you kind of talk about what that path might be through Michigan City, where you're starting, where you're finishing? Certainly some of the highlights, I have to start off with what I consider the relationship between architecture and history, and one of the things that we might say is that buildings are history written in stone. And so while we'll be looking at architectural features, because architecture is related to different time periods, so you have different styles that relate to different time periods, but why were those styles popular at particular times? How did that reflect the culture and the society of those times? And so we'll be considering those topics as well as looking at the aesthetic nature of these buildings. We're going to start off at the Michigan City Public Library. That's the building that I say that people love to hate, but also, you know, just love. It has some controversy there. You can't talk about the architecture without talking a little bit about the history of city planning. And the city planning of Michigan City is fairly interesting in that it has followed all of the national trends from one generation to the next, as we've gone from one city planner to the next. So that library sits in what used to be the straight through way of Franklin Street, but it is the only building in Michigan City that has a national recognition with the American Institute of Architect Award for Design Excellence. And it is an incredible example of, let's say, late 20th century architecture by a really prominent architect, Helmut Jan. But from there, we're going to proceed down Franklin Street, where we have a whole mix of buildings from different time periods, different styles. One of the things I really liked is the colonnade that's left on Franklin Street that was from the first federal bank building that then, when they took that building down to build the modern bank, they left the classical colonnade. We're going to look at several of the historic churches, particularly the Uptown Center, which was St. John's Lutheran Church that was converted into an event center, but also St. Paul's. And then we're going to end up at Trinity Episcopal Church and its Barker legacy. There are three buildings in that complex, and the Barker family, particularly John Barker, the rubber car industrialist, was very heavily involved in the creation of those buildings, along with his daughter, Catherine Barker. It's going to be a great tour. We're also going to look at some of the modern sculptures that are in the Uptown Arts District. This is a historic district. It's called the Michigan City Commercial Historic District. Lots of things to consider, and I'm hoping that people will join us for interesting discussion and looking at history written in stone. Sounds like a wonderful afternoon. We're going to end up with some refreshments at Barker Hall at Trinity Episcopal Church, an extraordinary building. Well, that's Matt Kubik. He's going to be taking a walking tour of historic downtown Michigan City, Saturday, September 21st at 1 p.m. It starts at the Michigan City Public Library. That's at 100 East 4th Street. And then we're going to take a tour all the way through there and end up at Barker Hall and refreshments provided by Sweet Lou. Thank you, Matt, for coming on Art in the Air Spotlight. Great pleasure. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Matt. And to Spotlight Extra, the Memorial Opera House celebrates its grand reopening on September 14th at 8 p.m. with Laugh for Life, a night of laughter with hilarious Anna Belovo and Woody Jim Flanagan, hosted by local comedy legend Brandon King. Tickets available at MemorialOperaHouse.org. Art in the Air Spotlight and the complete one-hour program on Lakeshore Public Media is brought to you by McAuley Real Estate in Valparaiso, Olga Patrician, Senior Broker. And as a reminder, if you'd like to have your event on Art in the Air Spotlight or have a longer feature interview, email us at aotaatbrech.com. That's aotaatbrech, B-R-E-C-H, dot com. This is Whitney Reynolds of The Whitney Reynolds Show, and you are listening to Art on the Air on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM, and on WVLP, 103.1 FM. We are pleased to welcome Lael McVille to Art on the Air. For Lael, making her art keeps the magical doorway of wonderment open, the enchanting moment of discovery, and the beauty. She primarily uses polymer clay with the ancient technique of millefiori and combines that with found objects and her own colored pencil sketches, plus add an active imagination. With her husband, Josh Blanc, they have the business clay squared to infinity. Thank you for joining us on Art on the Air. Aloha and welcome, Lael. It's really wonderful meeting you. Hi. It's great to be here. Thanks so much. We always like to find out the background of our guests, and I always like to say their origin story and how you got from where you were to where you are now. So tell us all about Lael. Yeah. Well, so I grew up on the plains of Gillette, Wyoming. So there's not very many people that can claim they're from Wyoming, since it's such a sparsely populated state, and my dad was an engineer and my mom was a kindergarten teacher. So there were also parents that really encouraged me to try lots of things, plus I was the oldest of four. So that also meant that they were super busy and I got to kind of do whatever I wanted to. And I was just one of those kids that always had a project going. So whether it was like marionettes or a Smurf village on my brother's train set or dollhouses, I also was really into 4-H. So I did every single project that you possibly could in the arts and crafts listing. And I sometimes didn't even know what they were. It was like, what's this? One of them was like, tube painting. I'm like, what's tube painting? I don't know. So I would go to the library and look up how to do it, and then try to find the materials, which is not easy in little Gillette, Wyoming, where the only place you could buy arts and crafts supplies was the radio shack. And so I didn't really make anything. I always think back to those times, because I just was so willing to just try anything. And when I got into high school, I had the most amazing art teacher, Christopher Amond, who really set me free to just do whatever you want, just create. And the other turning point for me really was I got to see real art. When I was between junior year and senior year, my parents took us to the Smithsonian Museum. And that's where I discovered that there was more than just cowboys and bronzes and really, like, I thought maybe the best art you really could see was at the Hallmark Cards, you know. And I just really didn't know what you could really do. And going to the Smithsonian and seeing pop art really blew my mind. So my senior year of high school, I just made whatever I wanted. It was really dimensional, but still with, like, drawing and cutting apart. I did a lot of drawings on an illustration board and then cut it up and made it dimensional. So I called it two and a half D. So it's kind of interesting, because it's not that different than what I'm doing now. But, you know, most people are not going to sit in high school and say, I'm going to become an artist. I wanted to make art. I knew that's what I really wanted to do. But I looked around me, and I did not know anyone that was a full-time artist. I did not know that was even possible. And I thought, well... I know, just the art teacher. Yeah. I could be an art teacher. And actually, for a long time, I'll be an art teacher, you know. But then, you know, what do I want to do? And I really liked writing. And so there was a competition, actually, for a children's book, writing an illustrated children's book. And I entered that, and then I was like, oh, this is what I want to be. A children's book author. And I placed well. I can't remember if it was, like, second or third, or something like that. I didn't get published, but I was right up there, so it gave me, really, hope. And so I thought, okay, I'll go to school for illustration. And still, like, totally not knowing anything about the art world, or even knowing art school existed. I didn't even know there was such a thing as art school. So I ended up going to Casper College, which was a community college about two and a half hours from my house in Gillette. And that was where I met my illustration teacher, Nancy Madura, who told me about our art school. And she basically was an alumni of Columbus College of Art and Design, a place I'd never heard of. But she taught us a lot of the things the same way. And pretty much any artist, any student that she saw that had potential, she had the power to hand out scholarships. So she sent me off to Columbus College of Art and Design in 1990, pretty much, when I ended up going there. And that was, like, getting out of a box. I was, like, you know, Gillette, Wyoming. I did not know anything about the rest of the world. And all of a sudden, I'm in Columbus, Ohio, you know, this, like, totally foreign land. And that is where, you know, I studied to be an illustrator. I thought I would write and illustrate children's books. But I, you know, I tried really hard. It's not easy to get published. And even in art school, I wrote and illustrated, I think, four full books that I submitted and did not, submitted to every publisher I could find, and did not get published except for just three books, actually, I did do three books that were just illustrated, but I didn't get to write them. So when I started doing art fairs, which literally happened in art school, they had an art fair. And on my, I think it was my junior year, so I still had another year of school. And I did this one day art fair and made $1,000. And back then, when my rent was only $100, I was like, this could work. People will buy. So that's when I started learning about art fairs. And in Ohio, there's actually a lot of art fairs. And I started trying out that whole scheme. And right out of art school, I entered art fairs. And then I also had a show at my back home in Gillette, Wyoming, at an art center. And so I did a big exhibit there. And that's kind of, I feel extremely lucky that I literally found the perfect fit for what to do right out of art school. And you know, it's a roller coaster. It definitely is to be a self-employed artist for 30 years. It is a roller coaster. But from then on, I've just been like, I refuse to get a real job, just going to do it. So what work was at that first art fair? So, well, I started with, you know, in art school, they make you do a lot of, you do a lot of, you know, repetitive work, right? And one of the classes I had was a watercolor class. And we did, you know, so many watercolors, probably just loose watercolors, maybe three or four a week. And I was like, what am I going to do with all these, you know, that they're figurative and they're fine, but they're not amazing. So I started ripping them up and doodling all over them. And I'd have these little like one inch by one inch little squares, and I would doodle on them with a black ink pen and colored pencil and make what I call story scraps. So it started with the stories, which has been a theme for me. I mean, you know, as an illustrator and a writer, as, you know, a young person, it really carried through. And I make these little goofy stories, they'd be like something like, Miss Cat brings the cake to the party of snakes or something like that, you know, just silly little sayings on the bottom of them. And I'd sell them. And I was amazed people would buy them. I still have some in my studio, and just the other day, I sold a few and it was like, wow, I can't believe I'm still finding homes for these little tiny story scraps, as I call them. So, yeah, that and then I also did mixed media. So I was already making like really crazy frames, like with my parents got me a sewing machine for graduation. And so I made these like fabric frames and I started doing quilts and that's what I did in the first art center show where giant three dimensional quilts that were alongside a story theme. And then I also did Miss Lion's underwater magic wand shop story that I wrote that went through that whole piece. You know, nonsense and goofiness is kind of fun. Yeah. So that's what I just did it, you know. So in school, you're exposed to a lot more than just illustration. So did you pass like the clay studio and did it ever draw you in? Because I'm, you know, I would love to. Well, what's so interesting is in ceramics in high school, I just had an instant failure. It's like, you know, I tried to throw on the wheel and I couldn't do it. And then I built things in ceramics, like hand built. And I thought, you know, they turned out great, except then, you know, what happens in high schools is the kiln melts down or, you know, somebody put something in there and explodes. And so I never saw anything come out of the kiln because everything kept getting wrecked. And so my experience with ceramics was very negative. And then, but then as I got out of high, pretty much right out of college, I started playing with the polymer clay. I was exposed just a little bit in 3D illustration, just to plain white polymer clay, and then we painted it. But then out of art school, I saw a little tiny bead with a giraffe on it. And I thought, how did they do that? And then I kept trying, you know, without knowing any techniques to layer the colors and slice them up. And it wasn't until I saw in the kid's clay book, the basic concept of millefiori of starting big and then getting small. And then I was obsessed. And I just kept trying and trying. It really, it was, you know, they wouldn't work out, but I would swirl together the colors and use it on my three dimensional work and, you know, but it was just kind of trial and error and a lot, a lot of error for about five years before they really started working. Yeah. Yeah. I watched your video on doing it and it's like, totally captivating. I just like, I'm just astounded by what goes into it, you know, the whole process and the whole way that you have to think to accomplish that. I, you know, yeah, it's like a puzzle. I mean, that's why I love it. And that's why I always talk about that. My dad was a civil engineer and my mom was a kindergarten teacher, because I always say like now I'm engineering with Play-Doh is basically, it's totally this puzzle. And like just this last weekend, I was making a morel mushroom and I just so enjoyed this challenge because I'd never done that design and to try to figure out how to get that texture and make it look, you know, dimply, how morel mushrooms are. And it just, it's such a thrill to try to figure it out. You know, I'm pursuing, I'm going over your website and I'm looking at the teapots and I think, oh, these are very whimsical. Are these a practical use or are they just purely art? Yeah, you could actually use them. So I am actually covering an actual ceramic teapot. So the ones that don't get totally out of hand are totally functional. There's a few where I keep kind of, you know, adding, you know, big, tall, tall branches and, you know, different things hanging off of them and they might be like pretty cumbersome, but you know, the idea is there. I kind of like that idea that, you know, that everyday object sort of turned into something magical that, you know, in theory, well, yeah, like your rain cloud bird teapot I'm looking at, I think, yeah, that might be a little tough for there. So now are those one of the kind objects or do you? Oh, yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah. They're always one of the kind. I mean, sometimes I'll do sort of a series. Like I've done a lot of roosters with the bright colors and, you know, or things like that. But yeah, there's no replicating, that's for sure. Everything is one of a kind. So how long when you do one of those canes, how long before you have to bake it? You know, like do you cut it into slices right away and take care of it? I mean, that's the great thing about polymer clay is it never dries out. So I have in my studio, I call it my palette of pictures. So I have chunks of clay, there might not be very much, maybe just like an inch by an inch of a design that I might have done 25 years ago. So I, you know, generally the whole thing when I make it, it's I get about 20 feet of the same design. And that's why I have to like figure out lots of ways that one reason I make such big sculptures now, because, you know, I've got to use up all of these pieces. And but those, they go away, you know, I'm always amazed, the same things will last forever. But within about 40 years, I'll use most of it up. And then I'll have that little bit that I just saved for the special, you know, use of what I needed. So yeah, so it works out. So do you consistently make them all the same size or do you leave some bigger and not take it all the way down? I usually use leave a little some of it about there's like three sizes that I technically do. Generally, every once in a while, like there'll be a design that I'll try to leave extra large just because it looks better, extra large, but like the smallest I go to is a well, no, it's smallest, it could be down to like pinpoint really, right? The largest I'll leave it will be about like maybe an inch and a half in diameter. Yeah, yeah, I try not to do all the tiny because it's really hard to go back to the bigger So what did you start with then when you went into the polymer? Because now you're doing like large animals and the teapots, but what were those first pieces? I mean, at the beginning, when I was first using polymer clay, it was, it was very brittle and you couldn't do a lot of really sculptural things. So you had to have structure inside of it, you had to have, you know, just not a lot of little parts sticking out, you had to be very careful. But now, so I would do actually, the first thing I did was a lot of little, I call them picture holders. So it might be just sort of a little lump, basically, or a simple shape, you know, maybe a star or something. And those would have little millefioris all over them. But that was a good way to learn, you know, learn all my techniques, because I was selling a lot of those. So, and I did a lot of wholesale orders and things too. So I was selling enough of them to get rid of all the things that didn't really work out that great. So they didn't have to look perfect, you know, swirl together colors. So, but then, you know, then just the clay got stronger, maybe, oh, probably about five or six years in, they started to get better formulas that would be stronger. And then I could really keep expanding with the clay. Because I remember being at art fairs and seeing people who were selling just the components. And they're just so beautiful. I mean, yeah, yeah. And I do sell just what I call my silly millies, just the like two inches of the millefiori cane that people can use up. And that's another way that I can, you know, get it all gone, share it with the world, so other people can have fun too. Well, that brings me to your Clay Square Gallery. And tell us about that. I mean, it looks like you have classes, clay parties, and well, tell us all about what goes on there. So my husband and I and another art couple purchased a building in 2018, renovated it in 2019. And then we moved into this building. And as of last year, one of our tenants moved out, well, this year, in March, one of our tenants moved out and we decided to expand even further and give my space, give me more room and my husband more room in his tile section. So I just officially opened in May the Clay Square Gallery, which is right on the busy street of Lowry in Minneapolis. And it's got just a lot of room for my larger pieces to hang on the wall and have space and then room for classes and parties and open studio. The first things we got to do was the Arter World, which happens in Minneapolis, Northeast Minneapolis Arts District every May. And there's like 1,200 artists that are open. So I got to open my studio up and have people just come in and play. And so I do make and take. So they just come in and, you know, check out the piles of clay. Usually it's the scrap pile that's about 16 feet long. Keep pulling up little treasures and slicing it open and creating and that's just kind of free form. And then I'll do, you know, classes that are a lot more, you know, step by step to learn different things. So yeah, it's a it's a wonderland. I feel so lucky to have that space and have a lot of room. Do you have a specific time of day that you work on your like, OK, I'm going to work on this from this time, this time or is this something like, OK, I have to do this like my inspiration? I kind of do because I end up building my canes at art fairs because it's such a good portable art form and it's really fun to show people what I do. And then I'll end up building the sculptures in my studio. And I just try to get to the studio as much as I can. So I'm generally open in the middle of the day, like, you know, 12 to four or so, but I will also work into the evening and, you know, I always have a little bit of a little mini studio also at home. So I'm always either mixing colors or lately I've been just building little little creatures just while I sit and watch TV at night. I'll even work in the car because if my husband's driving, I'll work in the car making things or, you know, building whole entire I built a whole bunch of bikes on the last trip, little mixed media bikes to put creatures on. Oh, so keep myself entertained all the time. I know it's just like even your creative titles for everything are just so magical. Oh, thanks. Yeah, those tend to come to me in the night. I'll go to bed thinking about a piece and let it do. And I'm always amazed. I'll wake up in the morning and sometimes it's like, no, that's kind of crazy. And I'm like, no, I actually like it. Is that kind of what your doodles in clay are then, those little inspirational moments? Yeah, yeah. A lot of those scribble scapes are all those came from from my nephew scribbling in my sketchbook. And then I Googled on them and then turned them into sculptures. And yeah, a lot of those are pretty fun titles. My favorite is sometimes chickens drive tractors over the clothesline. That's how life is, you know. So is there any other art that you've never done that you'd like to do? And, you know, you've kind of really centered on that, but it's like, gee, I wish I did oil painting or something else. Yeah, I have done a lot of things. I think at this point I'm really expanding more and more into the mixed media and maybe a little less of the clay. I kind of imagine I'll do a little, but they feed off of each other so well. And so I don't know what's, you know, learning more mixed media techniques. I mean, there's just so many to keep learning and trying. I tend to be the kind of person that just wants to experiment and learn on my own. So that means I learn a little slower, but it's more fun that way. So do you have a clear picture when you start out and be it an animal or a scribble scape? And I'm assuming with scribble scape, you've actually done a drawing, but do you, does it kind of come to you fully realized or are you like doing one of the animals and just kind of, as you go, saying, oh, I have this bottle cap that can go in there too? Yeah. I mean, sometimes I'm laying things out and have a general concept where I'm headed, but I really like to be in the moment creating. And it's much more fun. Very intuitive. Yeah. I like, and it's so exciting when you're just like, where did that idea come from? You know, it just seems like it's out of nowhere or else do one thing. I mean, I think about stuff a lot. So things will, you know, whatever, when I'm really working on a piece, I'm thinking about constantly and, you know, you might come up with an idea, but then you get in the studio and like, oh, that totally doesn't work. And then I got to do this. But, you know, it's, yeah, constantly. And sometimes I take a picture of it because it looks like it kind of works, but the image that I take will show me where my misdirection might have been. Oh, yeah, totally. And I have a studio that's open to the public. So people are coming in also and reacting to it constantly. I'm getting a lot of feedback from that. And if it's not working out, then I just got to try and try. And that's when it gets interesting. You wait to see if people come in and go, oh, that's a, you know, tell me what it is. Well, in a follow up question to Esther's process, do you ever sketch something out first, like just to get a rough idea of what you're going to do and then create it or? Oh, yeah. You usually have little loose sketches. Yeah, generally, especially the bigger sculptural animals. Those are, they start with a sketch that I'm shooting for a pose, but like the exact specific ways it's going to be, you know. And, you know, also willing to change it as I go. Of course. I know. I love that you added those photos or those sketches of the commission so that we could see like where it wound up. I mean, it was so wonderful of you to do that. Yeah. Yeah. It's fun to share the process. It's great. Well, you know, we only have about a minute left. We want to give you an opportunity to tell us how people can find you online, find you in person in Minneapolis and, you know, all your social media. Yeah. Yeah. So I can you can find me at Lael McDill dot com. So it's L-A-Y-L-M-C-D-I-L-L dot com. And that will have a list of all of my shows. I've got a lot of gallery shows coming up and art fairs coming up. And then if you make it to Minneapolis, I have a studio that the gallery that's open regular hours. So just check out Clay Square dot com. That's the business that my husband and I own. And you can come and stop in there. Sounds great. Well, you appreciate coming on out of the air and sharing your wonderful clay journey and your whole backstory. Lael McDill, thank you so much for coming on. And it's Lael McDill dot com. And we'll have a link on our website on your pictures. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me. It's really fun. Yeah, thank you. It was a complete pleasure. Art of the Year listeners, do you have a suggestion for a possible guest on our show? Whether it's an artist, musician, author, gallery, theater, concert or some other artistic endeavor that you are aware of or a topic of interest to our listeners. Email us at AOTA at BREC dot com. That's AOTA at BREC dot com. Did you know that you can also listen to Art of the Year any time as a podcast at Lakeshore Public Media's website through Lakeshore's app or from NPR? Plus, it's available on demand from your favorite podcast website, including TuneIn, Spotify, Amazon Music, Pandora, Apple Music, iHeart Radio and many more. Art of the Year is supported by an Indiana Arts Commission Arts Project Grant, South Shore Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. This is Megan Stoner and you are listening to Art on the Air on Lakeshore Public Media 89.1 FM and on WVLP 103.1 FM. We would like to welcome Josh Blanc to Art on the Air. Josh is an award winning ceramic artist and has the business Clay Squared to Infinity with his wife, artist Lael McDill. Josh creates gorgeous handmade tiles in a variety of shapes and sizes from historical to fantastical. He also has written a large collection of published articles about tile art and artists featured in numerous publications. Thank you for joining us on Art on the Air. Aloha and welcome, Josh. It's really great seeing you again. Hello. Nice to see you guys as well. And if you check our website, you can hear a 46 minute extended podcast interview with Josh. So you'll hear some of the same things, but maybe some more detail. But we're still going to ask about briefly your origin story. I would like to see how you got from where you were to where you are now. So tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to doing what you're doing. Yes. So one of the things that I thought about was starting back in the high school era or probably earlier than that, about fifth grade. I remember my father working with a guy at IBM that was a glassblower, and he would make these icicles and little creatures and, you know, probably the perfect age to sort of see something like that. And it was I just totally glommed on to that idea at that age and stuck through it through high school and wanted to do glassblowing. But right as I got into high school, my senior year, we had a new art teacher that added to the our regular art classes and she had a pottery. And none of us had seen a pottery wheel before. We didn't know what it was. And I was like, OK, let's try it. And that day I was the only person who could throw a pop. So I was sort of like, OK, that's interesting. And I was like, OK, I should keep this in my mind. And I started, you know, put that on there as I look for schools to go to. Well, that's very impressive, because centering that first pot is really difficult to do. We'll call it luck, you know, but whatever works right there, call it aptitude. Right. So from there, how did you progress in learning your but not only your art, but like education? Yeah, I applied for a bunch of schools that didn't get in my first year to the art schools and other places that, you know, I didn't have a real portfolio that we we tried, but my drawing skills were just not there. I did not have the background for that. And so I took a year off from going to state school. And then I my mother found a teacher, private lessons for drawing and painting and contact her up. And there's a woman, you know, somebody from World War Two era, you know. So to me, she was definitely somebody who was really old. But I was, you know, 18. Everybody looks old when they're 18 now. And but she was a force of nature. And she definitely gave me a lot of ideas and thoughts and how to help drawing and painting and really got me through the process of creating a portfolio. And I applied again and got into Kent City Art Institute and Columbus College of Art and Design. And I went and visited both of them. And I ended up going with Columbus. And it had glass blank and ceramics. So that was a really good combination for me to sort of practice. But I called it the art prison as it was a the president really loved gray walls. And so everything was gray everywhere and cement blocks. And whenever you left your dorm room, they're like, get back in there and start making things that I would like. We you know, I had 11 classes a semester and each of those were three to 10 hours worth of homework. And this was the norm. And so like it's a big shock, you know, but you I had good work ethic growing up on farms and doing those sort of things. So it was a good starting point for me. Tell us a little more background before we move on to your art and how you got into what the farm work, how does that help inform not so much your work, but the work ethic you have? Yeah, I think a couple of things on that, I think when you work on farms and you do little things, you're up early or, you know, my parents raised pigs and chickens and turkeys and I raised rabbits. And so like you have to be attentive to other things besides yourself. So I think that's a good thing to learn. I was an only child. So, you know, those are also good to have empathy and learning the whole process of that and lots of great stories of moving animals around and doing things. That's fun for stories for other days. There's a lot of personalities here. I don't have a lot of personalities growing up in Vermont doing that. But I think that also you do a lot of hand eye coordination sort of thing. You know, my father was a forester. We're moving wood. We're building things, fixing up an old house. So like you learn a lot of skills that you don't know you're really building. So, of course, your parents are like, you want to work today? Sure. So this is what you do all the time. So I think most people who grew up in the country have similar backgrounds to that. So but art school was definitely. It's not what a lot of people think, art school, a lot of people. I imagine I've heard, you know, like you're sitting around taking drugs and drinking and having a party. This is not how art school was for me in any sense. It was way harder than all the people at Ohio State when we you know, those people were definitely having a much more relaxed time than us. It was an intense school, which. Love it or love it. You know, like I think later on I can appreciate more, but at the time you're like, can we have a break? But you learn, you know, and you get better at it. And I think that I was definitely somebody that didn't have a lot of skills, but I had to learn them. And that was good for me to learn those skills where my wife had a lot of skills coming in. And that's where we met and be able to, you know, she was able to move faster and easier. I had to start from scratch. Well, there's so much to go into having your business, too. That was probably everything else will seem easy after that experience you just described. I feel that way. Yeah, probably not. Like when we did get out, we moved to Columbus and we moved to Minneapolis after we graduated and we got a I applied for a job working at a tile making place. I was working at the Walker and mowing lawns, which is totally what you want to do when you get you spend $40,000 a year mowing lawns. But, you know, you got to start somewhere. But I wanted to wait for the really the right kind of job to do what I wanted to do. I was really dedicated to not getting a real job so that I could really focus on if I was going to be an artist, you had to really buy into it early and not give up on the idea. It's too easy once you can afford a car and a couch and everything like that. We didn't have any of that. So it was better. But when I worked at the tile place where they got a job working there, it was as hard with the next level of hard. But having some of that background of how much, you know, from childhood to art school and then doing a really big project for the state capital of Minnesota restoration, you know, it tests you in all sorts of ways. And that's how I think that one gets from point A to point B. Yes, you have a very labor intensive job. I just want to I want to ask you something about your father, actually. So he was a forester. But also, did he then create things besides like maybe out of? I don't know. The obvious thing would be wood. But was he a creative in that way as well? Did you grow up with that? I mean, I thought he had drawings in his house and the house from when he was a kid. But he was not somebody who was an artist. I think, you know, as a lot of people want to be an artist. I think definitely for him growing up in the 40s and 50s and 60s, probably 50s and 60s, they were definitely not encouraged to be an artist. It's still hard for parents to accept parents to be an artist. He was very smart and, you know, good SAT scores, really, you know, top of his class. He went to school for science and and doing things that were related to what he liked being outdoors. So but yeah, I mean, anybody who lives out in the country has to be creative because like you have very few resources and usually not a lot of money and you have to make things yourself. So creativity comes in lots of different forms. OK, so we can jump back to the business. So you had that experience doing that restoration. Now, what's the first steps with your own business? How did you make that happen? So once I got done working at Retail Works where we made the state capital and anything and everything could go wrong. I left that and we took. When we went to get married, I took a workshop for our honeymoon and at the Anderson Ranch right outside Aspen, which, you know, that's experience in itself. You know, for people going to Aspen, it's hilarious. I'm trying to figure that scenario out. It was a great experience. And I came back with the idea I was going to, you know, start my own tile company. And I took that and. We bought a duplex and had an unfinished attic in it, so we thought this would be a great way. We had most of our rent. Mortgage was paid by the renter. We had a place to live and we didn't have to pay a studio fee. So like when you have that sort of trifecta, I think that is a great starting point for anybody wants to be an entrepreneur or anybody wants to be an artist. You need to cut all your expenses, especially if you have no money. And so that is a big part of our origin story, for sure. And just started, we got to kill him up in the attic. And I started, you know, 11 foot by 11 foot space. And this this testing color is doing some different things. And, you know, you don't know what you're doing. I mean, I had worked with doing large projects before, so I understood that. But getting a yellow page out was the most important thing at that time. You know, this is pre-Internet. This is, you know, 1996 and 1995. And we were just like. So you're opening this business. And what do you have to offer at first? So what did you create then to I mean, what were those first things that you were showing? First thing I had to do was make a color chart because I had to test all the colors that I wanted to use. And I thought I had to have a lot of them. So I thought I needed like 100 colors, which is absurd. But that's what you do. And, you know, we were I was testing those and making all the one inch by one inch pieces. And as far as getting out there, I mean, we moved to northeast Minneapolis and we'd heard our artists here. So that was the reason that we came to finding a place here. We're happy with that. And then Art of World kicked in, and that was just starting with the year that we'd moved in and I went to it. But the next year I was part of that the art scene at that point. They asked me to be a volunteer and I was like, sure, I'd love to volunteer. These artists who say, can you run a film festival? And I was like, well, I've watched movies before. I guess one. So, you know, I did. And, you know, you learn your skill sets and, you know, learn about perseverance and not knowing where to start and find people. But that sort of get me into the art scene and, you know, getting to know people and helping me. People know who I am, and that's really the relationship sort of any artist thing, it's a relationship. People get to know you and they tell their other people about you. But Yellow Pages was a big part of my world at that time. And then my wife did art festivals and I I worked on trying to get little brochures together, try to mail them and try to architects and designers and go to tile setter meetings, and I didn't know how to tile setting or anything. And, you know, just build a reference of people. You're listening to Art on the Air on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM on WVLP 103.1 FM. Tell us a little bit about the process of making the tiles. I mean, and also you have a wide variety of things that you offer. I think, you know, we discussed previously maybe that you had some people only offer a few colors. And of course, you just talked about having hundreds. But tell us about the process. I mean, in the history of tiles, well, how that's important to us. Two things in there. So let's see, I think that as far as it goes, like I learn over time to start really paring down from 100 to 30 colors so that I've not been able to get under 30 colors because there's always something you need for complimentary different sorts of things, mats and glosses and different kinds of greens and blues and, you know, all the different things. So we pare it down and and then the world changes. And you have to pick different colors because the mines, it's earth. And so you can't keep certain things. So there's a lot of that testing going on. The making of the tile is, you know, at first it's pretty simple, but I did start making designs that I was carving and floral designs. And then one thing I learned that my friend who was a neighbor, who was an artist, we had a garage sale and he was just enamored with some of the tiles I was making. He's like, these are just so cosmic. And, you know, I was like, OK, we're cosmic clouds and just like mixing colors together, whatever. I guess I don't use I would use commercial glazes. And then whatever it said to do on the bottle, I would not do that. I would do the opposite of that. And then mix them and create these crazy color combinations and sort of just very contemporary looking designs and not really what any ceramic tile maker that I had seen had been doing. So that was sort of my I mean, I came from more of a painter sort of art, fine art sort of background and not a ceramic tile or pottery background, even though I did know that it wasn't my focus. I was much more interested in big, lofty ideas will save at the moment. And we would go from there. But I would use a little extruder, a little box extruder. And, you know, I can make tiles up to four inches wide and mostly one, two and three inch tiles, four inch tiles. And as you grow and make a little bit of money here and there, you start getting more things. And we were in our attic for a couple of months, a couple of years. And then we moved over to a little an old bar that took over. Northeast Minneapolis is very famous for its like there's 20 bars and 20 churches. And so like people there are the stories where people would drink on Friday, Saturday night and then go and get, you know, repent on Sunday or something. All these bars across the landscape here, we found one. And it was right on the Central Avenue and it was a lot of cars drove by. You know, I remember telling my wife, I said, you know, it's nine hundred dollars a month, you know, it's like there's no way you can afford that. And I said, look, thirty dollars a day. Can we sell thirty dollars a day of something? And she's like, OK, that breaks down. Sure, we can do that. And it works, you know, so, you know, that and tile making is a lot like that tile selling. I don't tell people square footage prices because it sounds scary. But if I tell people, oh, you know, you can do your backsplash for five hundred to twenty five hundred dollars, I'm like, oh, that's affordable to a fireplace. Same thing, you know, bathroom, different world. But so you learn the language of how to talk to people. And be able to understand that component and then try to come up with my own designs and then they come to me with their own ideas and sort of we have a dance and a conversation and try to get people from point A to point B. So do you have in the building? So you have a showroom then? Like if I came in, what would my experience be? So currently we moved into this space seven or five years ago, five and a half years ago that we bought a building. And so we have a showroom. We've had a showroom for the last three places we've been at. And so it is a place where, you know, we have all the samples of the colors that we make and all our tiles, the accent tiles that we make in our tiles. And we have a big wall, a big long wall, which showcases patterns, you know, hexagons and stars and other types of shaped tiles and then squares and rectangles, which is the common size that most people use subway tiles. A lot of people would use those words and try to match it up with more historic colors and time periods. We work a lot of houses from the 1890s to the 1950s. So, you know, very we try to match those sort of time periods and the feel of that. And that's sort of what I shoot for to try to what I hear back from people is that it really looks like the original to the house. And that is a really cool for us to try to create, you know, because old houses are not perfectly straight and they're, you know, in stark house, not perfectly straight. So everything fits together the way it's supposed to and feels like it's breathing in there and it's part of the house so that people can take out samples for two weeks for free or order them online. And, you know, that's probably the biggest thing out there is that people can order from all over the country. And so we spend invest a lot into our website to make sure that they don't get to talk to me. They know everything about me because it's on the website. And then they can just peruse and, you know, they know a lot about us. So, Josh, are you approached to do large public sculpture, be it sculpture or murals at all? Sure. Yeah, for sure. I mean, we've done quite a few throughout the days. A lot of artists will get what do you want to call it? They will get a public art project that includes tile. And I realized that years ago, just writing those grants is just so overwhelmingly tricky and guesswork. And I let other people come to us, but we have an exterior clay body. So that we can use that for people to make exterior projects. So I work with an artist, Foster Willey, who used to live in Minneapolis, lives in Detroit now, but he did all these steely columns that down on the parkway here. And he had these designs and he needed our clay and we would fire it for him. And so, like, you know, we work on those sort of levels. We have a lot of different artists come to us for different components. And then we will make things if somebody wants what we do. And I think I was kind of wondering if you and Lail have done any of these public works. Personally, not just the tiles, but you using your incorporating your work into public sculpture. I would. No, no, that's a different thing. Her stuff is not exterior grade or, you know, she does her own world. Even though we're both working clay, it's it's definitely different. So we haven't had that experience yet. Do you collaborate on any projects together? I mean, does she you with her ceramic sculpture and you with your tiles? Is there an overlap like, hey, we should do this together? Is that just you are in two different worlds? In general, two different worlds. Like just recently, she started taking some of my cosmic clouds and asked if she could use them and make them into other things. She had an idea. So she's been playing with those for sure. But yeah, she she does art festivals and runs off and does that. I have the shop where I can open and close it. And I don't have to lift heavy things unless people are picking up their projects. So, yeah, we live in we're in the same studio, you know, same space in general. So we see each other all the time. We you know, we talk about a lot of different things. But I think a lot of you hear a lot of artists that will be husband wife team and one is the artist and the other was the bookkeeper do that. We are both trying to be artists and we are and we hire bookkeepers. Our goal is to make enough money to hire people to do the things we don't want to do. That works well for us. And so but it's much more than you have workshops and different events. I know there are you have like a monthly event. Can you talk about that? Because it sounds so wonderful. Yeah, well, my wife does the workshops and classes, but we are doing what's called a snack and squish. So the snack and squish is a way for, you know, we provide like a food. We have a theme every month. Like tomorrow, we'll be having one that is heat and hot and flashy. So like we'll be talking about kilns and flashing of the different materials and things, but then we'll have spicy Afghani beef pizza from a local pizza place here. So it's just some fun, you know, ways. And then people come in. It's free. They get to learn a little bit about you on the background of each of us. And like every month, there's a different theme. They're all hilarious that, you know, you wouldn't guess what they are. So you got to be interesting if you're going to play with this stuff. So we do that every second Wednesday of every month, except for this month. And there'll be a different theme as we go forward. You can see it on our website or you'll get a you can sign up for a newsletter at claysquared.com and you'll be able to sign up and see what we do. And then I want to vicariously travel with you. Do you have travel plans for the next place you're going to visit? Well, we just got back earlier this year from Italy and from Paris, which are two of our favorite places to go. And we do a lot of historic tile searching. So we are working on, you know, there's there's Egypt, there's Turkey, there's England, there's there's just a variety of where we want to go. We want to go to Japan. It's endless. So it's we just wait and see. But yeah, there's a lot of amazing tiles throughout the country. You go to New York City or even Minneapolis. We've done two tile conferences, three tile conferences here. And we've made two tile maps. And it's just great to sort of explore all the historic tiles. And so that's part of our process of learning. You know, we're just about a minute and a half left. And one quick question is, do you ever have someone that you might be trained as an apprentice that was interested in learning that and the craft? And then, you know, follow up with how people can find you online, in person in Minneapolis and things like that. Sure. Yeah, we definitely we've done internships. Usually most summers we do internships. But a lot of people, you know, they come to us, they just find us. And, you know, it's just curious people, people that want to learn different things. Definitely a very different kind of shop than, you know, art shops are different. But, you know, we're not just production. You have to be very problem solving. And so we definitely do that. And then, you know, people, they usually find us through our Instagram at Clay Squared or Facebook. And then we have our website at ClaySquared.com. And we people will just explore what we do. We have, you know, regular newsletters and different sort of programs to sort of help people learn about tile and learn about how they can have fun with it and actually add some color and design that they wouldn't get at a big box store. So our focus is really colors and design and historic restorations. They are glorious, really. Thank you. Well, we appreciate you coming on Art of the Year. Actually, again, you can listen to a 46 minute extended podcast interview with Josh Blank, and you can find them at ClaySquared.com. And you can find out all about the wonderful artistic offerings he and also Lail offer. Thank you so much for coming on Art of the Year. That was good. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Josh. We'd like to thank our guests this week on Art of the Year, our weekly program covering the arts and arts events throughout Northwest Indiana and beyond. Art of the Year is aired Sunday at 7 p.m. on Lakeshore Public Media, 89.1 FM, also streaming live at Lakeshore Public Media dot org and is available on Lakeshore Public Media's website as a podcast. Art of the Year is also heard Friday at 11 a.m. and Monday at 5 p.m. on WVLP, 103.1 FM, streaming live at WVLP.org. If you have a smart speaker like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant or Apple Siri, just tell to play Art on the Air to hear the latest episode. Our spotlight interviews are heard every Wednesday on Lakeshore Public Media. Thanks to Tom Maloney, vice president of radio operation for Lakeshore Public Media and Greg Kovach, WVLP's station manager. Our theme music is by Billy Foster with a vocal by Rene Foster. Art on the Air is supported by an Indiana Arts Commission Arts Project Grant, South Shore Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. We'd like to thank our current underwriters for Lakeshore Public Media, Macaulay Real Estate and Valparaiso, Olga Patrician, senior broker, and for WVLP, Walt Redinger of Paragon Investments. So we may continue to bring you Art on the Air. We rely on you, our listeners and underwriters for ongoing financial support. If you're looking to support Art on the Air, we have information on our website at breck.com slash AOTA, where you can find out how to become a supporter or underwriter of our program in whatever amount you are able. And like I say every week, don't give till it hurts. Give till it feels good. You don't feel so good about supporting art on the air. If you're interested in being a guest or send us information about your arts, arts related event or exhibit, please email us at AOTA at breck.com. That's AOTA at breck, B-R-E-C-H dot com, or contact us through our Facebook page. Your hosts were Larry Breckner and Esther Golden. And we invite you back next week for another episode of Art on the Air. Aloha, everyone. Have a splendid week. And show the world your heart. You're in the know with Esther and Larry, Art on the Air today. Stay in the know with Larry and Esther, Art on the Air our way. Express yourself in art and show the world your heart. 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